Voting has just opened for an American online reality series that comes across as Blind Date meets Pop Idol - and which its creators hope will serve as a model for revenue sharing for the advertising industry, writes Ed White.

Boston interactive studio the Barbarian Group and two creatives from advertising agency Goodby Silverstein and Partners in San Francisco have launched The2Husbands.com and voting for it opened on Wednesday.

Zach Slow and gay colleague Tanner Shea are to "marry" two women chosen by the public from videos uploaded to the site and then voted on by members of the public, who will pay $2 for the privilege through PayPal or credit card.

After 500,000 votes have been cast the winning brides will be chosen and receive $50,000 each.

The Barbarian Group, which built the site, and was behind the Burger King Subservient Chicken website has agreed to share revenue and the creative production company Junior High Men, which owns the idea.

Although he would not discuss details, Slow said that the partners had also negotiated a contingency for the site's failure.

"It's a risk for everyone... but people work a lot better when they're part of the process," Slow said.

It garnered more than 3m hits, helped by appeals on YouTube and raised $10,000 and garnered media coverage on the BBC, in magazines Rolling Stone and Spin.

Barbarian Group founder Rick Webb, whose previous creative exploits include the successful Burger King Subservient Chicken website, sees the2Husbands.com revenue share model as a prototype for how production companies and brands might create and then capitalise financially from online entertainment properties.

"Millions of people are doing these things, so why not latch onto them earlier, instead of waiting to compete with Google," said Webb, who flagged the possibility of brands becoming involved in the project.

"When it's proven, or if Zach and Tanner have a track record we could go to [brands) and say, 'you could own this'."

"This is old hat in the entertainment industry," adds Webb.

"You have Creative Artists Agency [a Hollywood based talent agency representing actors and, increasingly, brands] going to Coca-Cola and saying, 'Hey do you want to sponsor American Idol completely?' and get in on the ground floor, but no-one does that on the web."